Google's Miner: We will outsell the iPhone

Search giant Google is certainly full of confidence when it comes to Android, arguing that it will have a much larger market than Apple's device.

Apple's small and tightly controlled market has often come up in criticism of that company's overall strategy. By locking itself to a small list of approved carriers, Apple may be hamstringing itself in sales.

So far, Apple has managed to sell some four million or more phones. However, some doubt the company's ability to meet its own 10 million unit sales goal for 2008 unless it significantly broadens its market worldwide.

Google mobile platforms chief Rich Miner argues that Android's larger reach gives it the upper hand. The devices will be produced by a multitude of companies, and the company's apparent openness to put the phone on a larger list of carriers is also a plus.

In addition, the company says that Android is completely open source, meaning that developers will have more control over building their applications. While Apple has released the iPhone SDK, Miner argued at the Emerging Communications Conference that it still puts restrictions on what developers can do.

The iPhone SDK has been downloaded over 100,000 times, but Android's SDK has been downloaded about 750,000 times according to Google's statistics.

Devices based on the Android platform are expected to make it to market in the second half of the year. Miner urged developers to work on both platforms if "you believe there will be lots of Android phones out there, as we do," InformationWeek reported him as saying.